Insider Newsletter from Information Mapping

December 2006

IMI Live Webinar Series: "Getting Compliance Under Control"

January 2007

IMI Live Webinar Series: "Identifying Communication Failures in Your Organization"

February 2007

"Making Web Content Work" at the Society for Tech. Communications (STC) Online Special Interest Group, in Burlington, MA

IMI Live Webinar Series:
"DITA, Topic-Based Authoring, and Information Mapping: What Authors Need to Know"

"Compliance, Risk, & the Art of Policy & Procedure Writing" at ASTD (local chapter)

"How to Write Usable Content for Multiple Audiences" at Training 2007 in Orlando, FL

March 2007

Live Webinar Series: "Improving Customer Service Through Effective Communications"

May 2007

"Modular Writing and Reusability" at the Society for Tech. Communications (STC) 54th Annual Conference, Minneapolis, MN

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December 2006	www.infomap.com	Vol. 14, No. 4

Information Mapping, Inc. Survey Reveals the True Impact of Ineffective Business Communications

By Cynthia Whitty, Public Relations Specialist

Results show that poorly written e-mails, presentations, memos, proposals, and documentation waste employees’ time and affect an organization’s reputation, impacting the bottom line.

The quality of an organization’s communications directly impacts its bottom line. That’s what respondents reveal in a new survey conducted by Information Mapping, Inc. (IMI). Nearly 300 respondents from finance, government, health care, high tech, insurance, and manufacturing took part in the survey. Eighty-five percent say it is possible that their organization has lost business due to ineffective presentations, proposals, memos, or e-mails.

The survey results reveal that ineffective business communications are causing serious business problems. Forty-six percent of the respondents report that their organization’s business communications cause mistakes and performance errors; 35% report underused content management systems or Intranets; 31% report high stress, low morale, or high employee turnover, and 24% report a swamped help desk or a high number of support calls.

In addition, of those surveyed

55% say employees are not easily able to find the information they need to do their jobs
45% say the information they use in their business is not accurate, complete, and up to date, and
44% say the information they use in their business does not contain the right amount of detail.

It was also found that significant time is wasted in an average day reading and writing business communications, especially reading communications that are ineffectively written.

Nearly 100% of the business professionals who took part in the survey say that writing business communications is “very important” or “extremely important” to their success on the job.

The True Cost of Ineffective Communications
If business professionals recognize that communications are important to their organization and to their own success on the job, why is so much time wasted reading, writing, and using ineffective communications?

According to Deborah Kenny, vice president and general manager of IMI’s learning solutions, “IMI has found that managers feel they have bigger, more important issues to worry about – like poor sales performance, low customer satisfaction ratings, skyrocketing operating costs, failed audits, high turnover, or costly compliance or manufacturing errors. They don’t see that their organization’s ineffective communications are costing them money and are often the root cause of each of these problems.”

What Companies Can Do
What can business professionals do to fix their communications problems?

Kenny says, “First, they can recognize the symptoms of problem communications. Then, they can rethink priorities and invest a little time and money. This simple formula can help solve some of those big business problems companies are struggling to overcome.”

IMI has helped organizations worldwide optimize performance by teaching and deploying its Information Mapping® method, a scientific approach for analyzing, organizing, and presenting complex information so that it is easy to access, use, and remember. Studies have shown that the method can decrease performance errors by 54%, increase documentation use by 38%, and decrease call volume by 80%.

For a free white paper, Top 10 Symptoms that Your Organization’s Communications are Failing, or for more information on the survey and how Information Mapping can help organizations solve difficult business problems

call 1-800-INFOMAP (463-6627) ext. 3350, or
send an e-mail to inquiry@infomap.com.

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